Category: Beijing

Beijing, China, good fortune, luck

Beginning: 2012 is the Year of the Dragon. It’s My Year, Literally.

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest member http://pinterest.com/vondelpark/

I was born in 1976, a year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac. As much as I am a Pisces, I am a Dragon: persistent, creative, loyal, decisive, generous, compassionate, active, and fiercely independent. My friend, Allan, is from Beijing and describes Dragons in one word: Conquerors. And I think that also suits me, in my own way.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been feeling ridiculously excited about 2012 and so it was with just a hint of synchronicity that I welcomed the news that 2012 is the year of the Dragon. The Water Dragon, to be exact – a time of great benevolence and grace. (And in yet another turn of synchronicity, my sign of Pisces is a water symbol.)

This is especially poignant for me because of all I’m planning for 2012. I’ll reveal more about my plans when I begin my new living and writing adventure on January 1st. Suffice it to say that it will be a year of tremendous change for me, a year when I will make a very large leap of faith, perhaps the biggest leap I’ve ever made. Fear will have no choice but to stand aside. It’s going to be my year.

And it’s going to be your year, too. The good luck that characterizes the Dragon extends to all people in the year of the Dragon. So make some plans. Be bold. Go after exactly what you want with everything you’ve got. Double down on all your efforts and watch the rewards flow in. If you’ve got dreams, 2012 is the year to act on them!

The Chinese new year happens on January 23, 2012.

Beijing, NBC, Olympics, sports, television

NBC’s Olympics website

Christa Avampato

I’ve started to have discussions with some companies and non-profits about the possibility of integrating social media into their marketing plans. Originally when I considered this type of consulting work, I thought the issue would be content creation. What I’m finding is that it’s about commitment and organization – the same two issues that companies struggle with in many aspects of their business. 


For the past week, I’ve been obsessed with watching the Olympics, and like so many people across the world, I am most keen on women’s gymnastics and the U.S. men’s swim team. I want to see Michael Phelps get his 8 gold medals in Beijing and I wanted to see Nastia Liukin win the all-around. Michael’s got 7 and Nastia surprised everyone, including herself, with her win in the all-around. 

I was so excited to see that NBC had created so much incredible content and integrated so much functionality into their Olympics website. Sadly, the organization is so frustrating that after a few visits of endless clicking, I’ve all but given up on trying to figure out the televised schedule. And that’s the trouble with an abundance of great content – all of a sudden the management and organization of it becomes just as critical as the information itself. 

I was surprised that NBC didn’t think through the site design more thoroughly. NBC had so much time to plan out how they would cover these games that the expectations of fans skyrocketed, mine included. I wanted it to be a piece of cake to navigate the website and find exactly the content I was looking for with barely any effort on my part. If anything, I’ve had to spend much more time sorting through the site and rarely find what I am looking for. I guess the network doesn’t hold simplicity in very high regard.

I take my hat off to the content creators of that Olympics website and to the many reporters who are contributing to the coverage; what the network really needed was a simplicity expert who actually understands how to use new media. With a once-in-a-lifetime event like these Beijing Games, it’s a shame that the executives didn’t see that for themselves.  It’s not abut throwing as much information in there as possible – this isn’t a flea market or a treasure hunt – and they certainly had enough money to do it right. Here’s hoping that they’ll learn from this error in time to make adjustments for their 2010 and 2012 coverage.